Star-Crossed?
by Echo and Erato
Summary: 150 word drabbles for Caesar's Palace shipping week.
1. I Will Follow You Into The Dark

Clove, fifteen years old and pride of the district, is going to volunteer, and she's going to win. That's the plan. That's what she lives for, what she was born for. She's been prepared her whole life for this, but if she doesn't survive, well, even when she was little she knew there'd be no choir or glistening halo waiting for her. She's had to deal with this. After all, Careers aren't born to live. They're born to play.

Cato volunteering, the boy she grew up with and hopelessly pined after, changes everything. And for the first time, she can accept what's down there waiting for her. She won't be alone.

_I will follow you into the dark._

Not that he ever cared for her more than a partner.

But everyone knows that star-crossed lovers don't exist.


	2. Bloodstreets

Annie should be afraid, for herself, for her son. But she's only _angry, _at Panem, at Snow, even at Finnick, because star-crossed lovers never part, that's the rule, _I thank the sea before meals and respected my parents and follow the rules, this is wrong, I was good._

Nothing is fair. _My baby has never done anything but he'll never meet Finnick but I'm not afraid for him, I'm angry, this is wrong._

_With no reason I feel my life slipping away._

_Can people die of sadness?_

Does it matter if people can? Annie can. Annie can't be a person, and Finnick couldn't have been, because if they were, they would have been together until the stars died, but Finnick died first. They had been star-crossed lovers though, unbreakable, so how...?

But everyone knows that star-crossed lovers don't exist.


	3. World Ain't Right

There aren't many memories Haymitch can't drown with his bottle. But there are a few that stick in his head like they've been sewn, shouting at him until he can't take them anymore but he can't do anything about it.

Maysilee is one.

She's not shouting and she's not thundering around, just standing with the smile that messes him up when he tries to think straight.

"You're not real, May," Haymitch snaps one night. "You died. Act like it."

Her self-satisfied smirk remains, but it's impossible for him to be angry.

He still loves her. Was it fair that the star-crossed lovers could keep each other? Was it right that they got everything he never did? Didn't Haymitch deserve Maysilee as much? Weren't they star-crossed too?

But everyone knows that star-crossed lovers don't exist.


	4. Isolation

Katniss is waiting.

She's waiting in Thirteen for the rescue expedition to return or not return. Thirteen, where there's no laughter, no hunting, nothing but numbing dullness and endless pressure on her to be the Mockingjay.

There's no Peeta.

It had been for the Games at first. When they were in the cave, snuggled together, it had been for warmth, and their kisses had been for food. Maybe because it was real to Peeta it became real to her. It's not a game anymore. She needs him, like he needed her, but she can't have him now.

How did this happen? She feels like Finnick. Peeta crept up on her. Surely the universe can't allow them to stay apart. _It's not for the cameras, Peeta. We're star-crossed now. Please come back._

But everyone knows that star-crossed lovers don't exist.


	5. Guess I'm Doing Fine

"There's nobody left I love."

_Can't you see I'm lying, Mockingjay?_

_He came here with me._

Johanna never thought it made sense. She'd call herself better than Annie any day. Why can't _she_ have Finnick? Finnick deserves better than better than a nutcase. Why doesn't he know how desperately she needs him?

Because he has Annie.

Annie has it all. She has the only person Johanna loves, but in opposite positions, Annie wouldn't be a seething, jealous, scumbag. Johanna pretends otherwise, but she knows why Annie has Finnick: she's _better. _Johanna used to have the hope that it could be her and Finnick, but she doesn't deserve him.

_Aren't I better than Twelve? __Why couldn't the star-crossed lovers be you and me, Finnick? Aren't I good enough?_

But everyone knows that star-crossed lovers don't exist.


	6. Streets of Philadelphia

Cashmere doesn't know why it's so wrong to love her brother the way she does.

He's all she has.

She's never told him. Never told anyone, actually. 'Sick,' they'd say, lips fixed in supercilious sneers. 'Disgusting.'

What do they know? Twins...it's just right for them to fit together like puzzle pieces, seamless, perfect for each other. It started when they grew up, when they didn't look alike anymore, when she was a woman and he was a man.

If the feelings she has are wrong, why has she never loved anyone else? He loves her too, right? Why is it so horrible?

All because of Twelve. Them and their normalness. Star-crossed...Cashmere and Gloss were born under the same star. That has to be right. Couldn't they be star-crossed?

But everyone knows that star-crossed lovers don't exist.


	7. She Keeps Me Warm

When Beetee met Wiress, she was just another kid, destined to die like every kid he'd tried to save. He wasn't much older, which just made it worse- this was a girl he could've been friends with in Three. When he mentioned inverse hyperbolic functions on a whim, since no strategy he'd suggested had elicited a response, she practically glowed

They talked through the entire train ride, on things ranging from the density of aluminum to the largest electric shock a human could survive.

Then he realized something: Wiress was going to win if it took his own life.

When she did, after only three days in the arena, having electrocuted twelve tributes at once, she was broken. Beetee healed her, and gave himself to her, the only good thing that had come to him since he won.

Apparently, sometimes, star-crossed lovers really do exist.


End file.
